


Going Out Altogether

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-20
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 16:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jefferson had just reached home when he realised he had made a big mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Out Altogether

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short wee piece, regarding Jefferson and Grace.

Jefferson had just reached home when he realised he had made a big mistake.

Not releasing the French girl from the basement. That was possibly the smartest thing he had done in years. He hadn’t even needed to drug her or use a gun or anything that he had used with Snow White and Princess Emma.

His mistake was underestimating how much Emma loved her kid.

Seeing her willingly working with Regina should have set off alarm bells, but it didn’t. She would never have worked with Regina, not unless there was something important going on, and something important had been lying, dying, on the bed between him and his worst enemy.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

If Emma loved her boy even half so much as he loved Paige, something was going to give.

Those who love do the most desperate things for their children.

Even believing in the impossible. 

He had only just taken up his telescope to search out Grace at her breakfast table when he felt the change in the air. He had never been magical, not really. The hat did all the work. He was just the conduit for it. But this time, magic-worker or not, he felt the crackle of power pass through the house, through him.

He shuddered, his hand wrapping around his telescope, and he looked through the lens.

Grace’s surrogates were standing in the kitchen, staring at one another. A plate slipped and fell from the woman’s hands. They were pale, and looked shaken. Grace was sitting at the table, and she looked up suddenly, and she wasn’t the smiling little Paige anymore.

The curse.

It was breaking.

He almost knocked his chair over in his haste to run to the door.

He didn’t drive often, but when he wanted and needed to be anywhere in a hurry, his sports car was good enough. He was only halfway to town, when something caught his eye in the rearview mirror, thick and roiling and purple and sweeping down on him like a tsunami.

Jefferson wanted to scream.

The curse was breaking.

His daughter was his daughter again.

And now, something else was trying to come between them.

He floored the accelerator, roaring through the forest and in the direction of town, breaking all kinds of laws and not giving a damn about any of them. All that mattered was getting to Grace, getting her in his arms where she belonged, and protecting her from everything and anything, no matter what it was.

They lived on the edge of town. That was enough. That might give him enough time. 

He swore and screamed as the billowing roaring wave of cloud got closer and closer, and he pushed his foot hard against the accelerator. It was already as flat as it could go and the trees were flashing by in strips of green and brown.

“Come on come on come on come on…” he whispered over and over, his hands twitching this way and that on the wheel. He could feel the car slip and slide on the wet roads, veering dangerously close to wrecking, but he grit his teeth and pulled harder on the wheel.

He had waited this long. 

He wasn’t going to lose her now.

His car screamed around the corner into the quiet street where they lived. He was pretty sure he collided with someone, sending them flying, or it could have been a mailbox. He didn’t slow to check. He only hit the brakes as he reached their house, the car ripping through their white picket fence, the tyres tearing their perfect lawn to ribbons.

“Grace!” he bellowed, throwing himself out of the car and racing for the door, racing the rising tide of magic that was coming closer too fast. “Grace!”

The door flew open and she was there and staring at him and threw herself down the steps.

“Papa!”

He had barely a second to register the feel of her in his arms, held tight and close, before the cloud of magic closed on them.


End file.
